If Wade Boggs wasn’t in the Hall of Fame, you could say that Kevin Youkilis is a right-handed Wade Boggs, because of all the similarities between the two. Neither was ever considered a top prospect, neither is blessed with what scouts would call a good baseball body, and neither Boggs nor Youkilis has ever been confused with Rickey Henderson or Jose Reyes for foot speed.

And Youkilis grinds through his at-bats, likes Boggs once did. He works the count, fouls off tough pitches, makes opposing pitchers sweat. He gets a lot of cheap hits — flares and dinkers and dunkers — in the same way that Boggs and Tony Gwynn and Derek Jeter get a lot of cheap hits, the classic sign of good hitters. Now Youkilis has a 21-game hitting streak, nine consecutive multihit games, and he is hitting .358.